Brick by Boring Brick
by Bitter Recognition
Summary: Anna hated monotony, hated her life; but she didn't hate her father, did she?


**Brick by Boring Brick**

**Summary: Anna hated monotony, hated her life; but she didn't hate her father, did she?**

**Warning: A main order of hurt, with some Frederick/Anna cuteness.**

* * *

I'm quite bitter about being a vampire, you know. At first, I thought it was amazing. Once bitten, you slowly morphed into a ethereal being, something so pure and lovely... but then you had to feed.

There is no poetic justice about biting people, connecting with them... then sucking noisily and leaving their children in an orphanage, or with relatives that don't want them. Having to watch their children cry and scream over their parents mutilated bodies, or watching parents sob and howl at the loss of their child...

_Oh God... please... stop! _They scream it in their minds; we can hear it clear as day, as we connect to them, to their heart beat, to every breath they take...

I thought it was amazing that I could blend in at schools; my age made it so I would fit in perfectly in year four lessons, but of course I couldn't because I'd be turned to ash near immediately, I could wear all the latest child fashions... but then I realised, I'd never mature. I'd never acquire womanly assets. I couldn't have children. I'd never lose my puppy fat. I couldn't wear high heels. I couldn't wear the skimpier outfits that you needed to be a UK Size 8 (whatever that means...) to wear. I wanted to be beautiful so that everyone would look at me.

It wasn't this bad in the beginning, when we were first turned. We could hide and we could blend in, but as things changed and evolved and we struggled to keep up, things were horrid and bitter and I couldn't understand _what _was happening... so I sunk into my poetry; every night was a bore; I woke up from my slumber, fed on a human, chased the whores down the back streets of Scotland, wrote a self-piteous poem about the injustice of our half-lives, listened as mother berated Gregory time and time again... the cycle got boring quickly and our family, although stronger from this shared experience, seemed to be breaking at the seams. Father was forever angry and took his anger out of his eldest son, the son stuck in puberty and left grasping at straws, Rudolph was trying to break out of his 'cute' image but was struggling, cutting off of his hair and battering walls, anything to make him look manly and rugged and mother... mother treated me like her little doll, dressing me up and parading me around and father watched with an amused glint in his dark eyes.

* * *

Nobody looks at you the same when you ignore them, not allowed to be their friends; in fact, nobody looks at you at all.

Nobody would look at me, anyway.

Father doesn't let us have friends. He claims humans are 'insolent, annoying, and rude'. I call that stupidity. Doesn't he realize that we need friends? We aren't naturally social, so if we do become human, we keep that trait. We are... awkward, to see the least, around humans.

That's why I was so happy when Rudolph became friends with Tony.

Well, that, and he actually _looked _at me. He _saw _me. _The real me._

With him, I could be poetic as much as I wanted and he wouldn't have a single bad thought in his tiny little head. With him, I could be however I wanted and he would just play it down to a quirk. With him, I was free. I could be Anna Sackville-Bagg, the best damn poet out there. When I was home... I was quiet, and very withdrawn. At least, that's what mother tells me. She too thinks Tony is simply amazing for our family.

"Tony, darling... What's wrong?" I asked softly, watching his pensive demeanour. His eyes snapped to mine. I was shocked.

"You won't remember me... No one will, will they?" he muttered. I smiled, showing off my rather long fangs.

"We will, Tony, so long as you remember us." I sighed, running my long red nails through his hair.

"But.. Rudolph said that he wouldn't remember me..." he pouted, eyes wide.

"Tony, if you ever need us... just whistle," I smiled. His eyes glinted curiously. "You.. do know how to whistle, right?" I whispered. He shook his head, eyes never leaving mine. I formed my mouth into an 'o' shape and blew. A long, tingling sound escaped my mouth and Tony stared at me. "Now you try." I ordered.

He tried, he really did. But only a weak sound came out. I smiled gently, warmly. "We'll work on it."

I made to leave and Tony grabbed my hand. I turned. He was smiling at me. "Thank you." he whispered.

I then remembered the mouse in my pocket. I opened it up, placing it on his bed. He jerked away, disgusted. "Its from the Old Country," I whispered. "It will bring you luck." I pulled his glasses off his head. "Now go to sleep." I sighed, smiling, placing the glasses on his small bedside table. He grinned toothily at me, before releasing my hand and wriggling around.

I laughed quietly, flying down the stairs and into the cellar.

I gently pulled the red cloth away from the small, old bed and settled in. I made it so my dress covered my feet, pulled the cloth over my hair and body and slept.

In my dream, I was reciting poetry to an adoring crowd.

"_I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.  
What ever you see I swallow immediately  
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.  
I am not cruel, only truthful-_

_The eye of a little god, four-cornered.  
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.  
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long  
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers._

_Faces and darkness separate us over and over.  
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,  
Searching my reaches for what she really is.  
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon._

_I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.  
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.  
I am important to her. She comes and goes.  
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness._

_In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman  
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. _"

The poem was called the Mirror, if I remember correctly. By Sylvia Plath. Goodness knows how my dream-self could remember, but she did.

She was tan and beautiful, I see. Nothing like me. She was older, lovely long blonde hair falling in a river over her shoulders. I'd never look like that, -

Dream Me pulled out a tissue from her coat pocket.

"This has a relevance to me, almost... Except, no, I did not kill my father." she laughed, I laughed.

"_You do not do, you do not do  
Any more, black shoe  
In which I have lived like a foot  
For thirty years, poor and white,  
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo._

_Daddy, I have had to kill you.  
You died before I had time-  
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,  
Ghastly statue with one gray toe  
Big as a Frisco seal_

_And a head in the freakish Atlantic  
Where it pours bean green over blue  
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.  
I used to pray to recover you.  
Ach, du._

_In the German tongue, in the Polish town  
Scraped flat by the roller  
Of wars, wars, wars.  
But the name of the town is common.  
My Polack friend_

_Says there are a dozen or two.  
So I never could tell where you  
Put your foot, your root,  
I never could talk to you.  
The tongue stuck in my jaw._

_It stuck in a barb wire snare.  
Ich, ich, ich, ich,  
I could hardly speak.  
I thought every German was you.  
And the language obscene_

_An engine, an engine,  
Chuffing me off like a Jew.  
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.  
I began to talk like a Jew.  
I think I may well be a Jew._

_The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna  
Are not very pure or true.  
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck  
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack  
I may be a bit of a Jew._

_I have always been sacred of you,  
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.  
And your neat mustache  
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.  
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You-_

_Not God but a swastika  
So black no sky could squeak through.  
Every woman adores a Fascist,  
The boot in the face, the brute  
Brute heart of a brute like you._

_You stand at the blackboard, daddy,  
In the picture I have of you,  
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot  
But no less a devil for that, no not  
Any less the black man who_

_Bit my pretty red heart in two.  
I was ten when they buried you.  
At twenty I tried to die  
And get back, back, back to you.  
I thought even the bones would do._

_But they pulled me out of the sack,  
And they stuck me together with glue.  
And then I knew what to do.  
I made a model of you,  
A man in black with a Meinkampf look_

_And a love of the rack and the screw.  
And I said I do, I do.  
So daddy, I'm finally through.  
The black telephone's off at the root,  
The voices just can't worm through._

_If I've killed one man, I've killed two-  
The vampire who said he was you  
And drank my blood for a year,  
Seven years, if you want to know.  
Daddy, you can lie back now._

_There's a stake in your fat black heart  
And the villagers never liked you.  
They are dancing and stamping on you.  
They always knew it was you.  
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through._"

I was wide eyed and tears were streaming down my face. Some of it had a magnificent meaning for me. The crowd was gone now, leaving only me and my dream-self. And father.

Dream-me glared at him, smirking sadistically. "Not very nice is it, father?" she, I, hissed. He raised a hand and-

* * *

Rudolph shook me awake. "C'mon, Anna, we have to feed!" His bright red eyes shone with a lust for blood. Gregory was already in his straight-jacket, Father making sure the coast was clear. My dream had disturbed me- I wrapped my arms and legs around my father and I wouldn't let go.

"Daddy... you know I love you, don't you?" I smiled at him. He smiled back amusedly, albeit quite uneasily; almost like I was going to attempt to kill myself.

"I know you do darling; I love you too."

* * *

**Okay, the poems are Mirror and Daddy by Sylvia Plath. Feel free to give criticism, constructive or destructive :)**


End file.
